This Small Business Innovation Research Phase II project will develop a portable, effective, low cost and easy to use hard X-ray or gamma-ray inspection system for structural damage assessment. Quick and effective laboratory and field nondestructive evaluation of structural damage is important for earthquake studies. In Phase I, a conceptual design using the CSL high sensitivity, direct photon-electron conversion X-ray image system demonstrated a novel real-time nondestructive structural damage measurement technique for concrete with a spatial resolution of 14 lp/mm. This new technique will be developed to a hard x-ray or a gamma-ray image detecting and processing system to directly visualize and quantify the structural damage, including damage location, damage pattern and sizes. A real-time damaging process can be monitored, recorded and transferred by this fast hard X-ray or gamma-ray detector and the associated image transfer network system. Together with the National Center for Earthquake Engineering Research at SLNY Buffalo, CSL will conduct a series of experiments to quantify the major design parameters of the prototype system and to prove the feasibility of this novel technique This system will benefit the inspection and real-time monitoring of civil engineering structures including bridges, utility structures, aging schools, as well as residential buildings.
